Page 144 of Never a Hero

‘What just happened?’ Tom demanded desperately. ‘What the hell was that?’

Joan’s heart thundered. In the true timeline, Ying had been married to a member of the Grave family. Would Jamie exist if Eleanor brought the Graves back? Was Eleanor erasing Jamie right in front of them?

As if in answer, Tom was suddenly holding onto nothing. Jamie was gone.

‘Stop!’ Joan screamed at Eleanor. ‘Look what you’re doing to him!’

Jamie reappeared again, looking off-balance. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked unsteadily.

Tom turned and put his shoulder against the barrier, bull-like. ‘I’m going to kill you with my bare hands!’ he gritted out at Eleanor.

In response, Mariam made a shoving gesture, and the invisible Ali wall became a weapon again, throwing them back along the walkway. Joan stumbled, trying to stay upright.

Tom brute-forced his way back up and ran at Eleanor again, but he wouldn’t be able to break through that barrier. He didn’t have the power.

Above, that unnatural blue sky began to swallow up the world. Panicked, Joan did the only thing she could think of. She gathered everything she had left, the last dregs of her power, and threw it, not at the Ali barrier, but around herself and her friends. She made a shield against the changes.

Around them, the world transformed, the dome of St Paul’s spiking back into a spire. Buildings shivered and rose and fell. In the distance, people vanished from the walkway, and new people appeared.

Eleanor’s power battered at the shield. A storm. Inexorable. Joan struggled to hold it. Her hands shook. She couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t keep up the stream of power. Eleanor was too strong. Had Jamie vanished completely like the people on the walkway? Joan didn’t have the strength to look back.

Eleanor made a furious sound. ‘Let go!’ she screamed at Joan. Above Joan, the alien sky bore down, and Joan’s power sputtered like a doused flame. The shield cracked. She fell to her knees, black spots covering her vision. As darkness closed in, she had a single thought.

It was over.

epilogue

Joan groaned. Was she dead? No. Surely your body didn’t hurt this much when you were dead.

‘Joan?’ A hand on her shoulder. ‘Joan?’

She opened her eyes. She was lying on the ground, her cheek pressed against something gritty and hard. A pavement? She turned her head and found Aaron bending over her, his fine features tight with concern. His thumb hovered over the line of her cheek for just a moment. Before Joan could even react, he blinked and seemed to catch himself, pulling his hand away. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘What happened?’ Joan managed. She shifted, and Aaron supported her to sit up. Joan winced at the new ache in her head as she moved. Images flashed in painful sparks: the King’s bright light flowing to Eleanor, St Paul’s dome rising to a spire as London changed around them …

Had Nick really killed the King?

Had Jamie—

Joan breathed in sharply. She turned, searching. But it was okay—Jamie was here, getting to his feet a few paces away, eyes bleary. And the others were just beyond him. Joan took another breath and closed her eyes, overwhelmed with relief. They’d survived.

A soft rustle beside her. Joan pictured Aaron removing his jacket and shaking it out. ‘Look at these wrinkles,’ he said, sounding a little disgruntled—and more like himself. ‘I’ll never get them out.’

Joan opened her eyes again. They seemed to be in an alley. Dark buildings had risen around them, narrowing the view of the north bank. Across the river, a bland skyscraper stood directly opposite. Far too tall for 1923. It took Joan a long, long moment to understand what that meant. ‘We’re back in the twenty-first century?’ she said slowly. ‘We’re home?’

But as she said home, her stomach turned over. She’d been feeling uneasy since she’d woken, she realised. Her body thought that something was wrong.

‘No.’ Nick’s voice was horribly blank. He’d gone to the mouth of the alley, and now he stood with his back to Joan, staring at the city. Joan’s unease flared to life. ‘We’re not home,’ Nick said.

Joan’s heart started to pound. With trepidation, she walked up the alley. The view opened as she did, and she gasped.

Under a thunderous sky, Old London Bridge stood to the west, its arches straddling the water, rapids rushing through the gaps. And at its centre was the mansion of the Graves, beautiful and terrible, and wrong. A discordant note in a song.

With growing horror, Joan followed the skyline. There was St Paul’s—not the familiar dome, but a spire like a sharpened stick. There was the architecture she’d glimpsed in the tear in the world: not-quite-Victorian black brick. And the dark skyscraper she’d dismissed as bland. Now, light caught the side of the glass, revealing a tint in the windows, a design that ran up the full height of the wall. Joan recognised the image with a jolt: a sea serpent engulfing a sailing ship. The sigil of monsters.

‘No,’ Joan heard herself say. She could see signs of monsters everywhere now. More sigils emblazoned on buildings: a griffin, a burnt elm tree. And on the walkway across the river, people strolled by wearing dark tweeds and gauze, Roman tunics, medieval dress.

Nick met Joan’s gaze. His eyes were dark—almost black. ‘This is the world we saw. Eleanor’s world.’

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